Archive for the ‘Smart Girls’ Category

The story: King Edward is dying, and he names Lady Jane Grey as his successor, doing an end run around his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Only problem for Jane–aside from the fact that she doesn’t actually WANT to be queen–is that she’s going to have to marry Gifford Dudley in order to do it. Gifford […]

The story: Jade–a black girl from the poor northeast side of Portland–is a scholarship student at the expensive, nearly all-white St. Francis school. She’s smart, and talented…and black. Jade has worked hard to get a chance to go on a study abroad–but instead, she’s picked for “Woman to Woman”, a mentoring program with a successful […]

The story: Ibtisam shares her story of growing up in Palestine in the 1970s-80s, when dreams were real but just about everything else was in short supply. Her life is proof that with hard work (okay, and some luck) you really can make a better life for yourself. Mrs. Friend’s opinion: Great for readers looking […]

The story: Lane McEvoy thinks she’s safe on her side of the Feral Zone–until her father goes missing and Lane finds out the secret behind his job as an “art dealer”: Mac goes into the disease zone and risks infection to bring back objects for the highest bidder. Given an ultimatum, Lane knows she must […]

The story: Flora is horrified when her neighbor, Tootie Tickham, accidentally sucks a squirrel into her vacuum cleaner. But things get even weirder when it turns out that the squirrel’s near-death experience has changed him–no longer is he just a food-seeking rodent. Now, he’s a thinking, feeling, poetry-writing food-seeking rodent. This is the story of […]

The story: Willow Chance thinks her world has come to an end when her parents are killed in a car crash. But strange events in her life keep her from getting placed in foster care–and these same strange events also change the lives of everyone around her, from slobby Dell Duke (transformed into someone who […]

The story: Hundreds of years after a massive atmospheric disturbance, Dwellers live in pods and try to keep their lives together. Outsiders rely on nature–and on the strange mutations that have come from living there–to keep them alive. Each is the other’s sworn enemy. When an attempt to contact her mother, missing in the Outside, […]

The story: Cadet Renee de Winter knows she’s going to be kicked out of the Academy if she can’t improve her fighting skills. But the events swirling around her make that difficult: treason, attempted coup, and the arrival of the one man whose approval she values more than anyone else’s. Is she willing to abandon […]

<a href="https://middleschoolbooksrule.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/one-came- The story: Georgie’s sister has disappeared. Bits and pieces of a body wearing Agatha’s best dress have turned up, and a funeral is held–but George refuses to believe that her sister is dead. Armed with her trusty Springfield single-shot rifle, Georgie decides to beg, borrow (or steal) a horse and follow Agatha’s trail. […]

The story: Master Potion-maker Kyra is on the run. She’s just tried to kill princess Ariana (who also happens to be her best friend)–but somehow her usually perfect aim failed, and she missed. Now, along with trying to evade the King’s guards, she’s also got to keep a hand on her tracking pig, keep the […]